DBM RELEASES P1.185B MORE IN ‘SRA’ TO D.O.H.

THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) released on Thursday an additional P1.185 billion to the Department of Health (DOH) for the Covid-19 Special Risk Allowance (SRA) of eligible private and non-plantilla government health workers.

More than 63,000 health workers directly attending to or in contact with Covid-19 patients are seen to receive their SRAS from this amount, according to Acting DBM Officer-in-charge Tina Canda.

This will be charged to the Contingent Fund under the 2021 national budget.

President Duterte approved the release of the additional amount on January 14, based on the listing of the Special Allotment Release Order posted on the DBM website.

Canda separately told Businessmirror there is “no fixed period” covered for the SRA “because the request was based on the submission of hospitals covering varying dates.”

For this amount, government health workers who are in plantilla positions are excluded.

The budget official explained that these health workers had already received their SRA earlier from the previous amounts released by DBM.

The DBM previously said in September last year that it has released a total of P8.23 billion, benefitting about half a million health workers who each received SRA for the period covering December 20, 2020 to June 30, 2021.

Eligible health workers are entitled to receive SR A not exceeding P5,000 per month. This is on top of the existing compensation as prescribed under the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers and the DOH-DBM Joint Circular No. 1, series of 2016.

The grant of Covid-19 SRA shall also be pro-rated based on the number of days that the frontline health workers physically report for work in a month.